Lawmakers face budget strife, election challenges

SACRAMENTO, Calif. 
The state Legislature reconvened Wednesday for a year of diminished expectations set against a background of intense partisanship and election-year politics.

Lawmakers face a $13 billion budget deficit and several hot topics that include pension reform, high-speed rail and whether to keep an $11 billion water bond on the November ballot.

Gov. Jerry Brown and his fellow Democrats, who control both houses of the Legislature, already have said they do not plan to engage with Republicans in budget discussions after last year's failure to reach a compromise. Instead, they'll go to the ballot and ask voters to increase taxes on the wealthy and boost the state sales tax.

That approach could sour relations between the two parties even further, reducing the prospects for deal-making on other issues.

State Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, criticized Democrats for seeking higher taxes and said the majority party would have more success with its proposals at the ballot box if they worked with Republicans.

"I think that the more the voters see that the Legislature is working in a bipartisan way, the more that they'll be receptive to ideas that end up on the ballot box. I think it's a bad move on their part, but they certainly can do that," he said.

Huff also was chosen Wednesday to lead the 15 Republicans in the 40-member Senate, replacing Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga, who stepped down because he is termed out of office after this year.

In addition to budget solutions, party leaders also differ over the scope of reforms to public employee pensions and whether California should press ahead with a high-speed rail project as the cost has ballooned to $98 billion.

Assembly Minority Leader Connie Conway, R-Tulare, said voters expect lawmakers to rein in public pensions this year because the state is facing at least $75 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. She also was open to reducing and perhaps delaying the state's $11 billion water bond but said the lack of snowfall so far this winter in the Sierra demonstrates the need to build more reservoirs to capture runoff during wet years.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said he wants lawmakers to cut the water bond below $10 billion but still put it before voters this year. He also said legislators have an obligation to pass pension reforms in the first six months of the session after Brown submitted a detailed pension-reform proposal, but it's unclear how much reform Democrats are willing to stomach. Public employee unions are major campaign donors to Democratic lawmakers.

Underscoring the legislative agenda will be lawmakers' preoccupation with their political careers in a year of fundamental change. A new top-two primary system and legislative maps drawn for the first time by an independent citizens redistricting commission lend a degree of uncertainty to lawmakers up for re-election this year.

Politics also emerged Wednesday in the form of a resolution introduced by two Democratic lawmakers.

It calls for a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which held that corporations can spend unlimited sums to influence elections. The ruling generally is viewed as benefiting Republican candidates.

Assemblymen Michael Allen of Santa Rosa and Bob Wieckowski of Fremont submitted their resolution the same day Occupy protesters announced they would target more than 80 courthouses nationwide, including some federal courts in California, to protest the Supreme Court decision.

The Friday protests are scheduled one day before the second anniversary of the ruling, which has led to a surge in corporate campaign spending.

"A lot of us believe the Supreme Court ruling has thrown us out of balance," Allen said. "It's a system that's out of whack, and for democracy to function well, everybody needs a voice and not to have some voices drown out the others because of overwhelming resources."

Hawaii passed a similar resolution last year and other states are considering similar action, according to Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit advocacy group backing the resolution.

Voters will be watching lawmakers more closely because it's an election year, said Assemblyman Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga.

Lawmakers will be running in new districts, and the top-two primary system means the top vote-getters in the June primary will go on to the November election, even if they are from the same political party. Proponents say that change could favor candidates who are more moderate because they will have to appeal to all voters during a primary, not just party die-hards.

"You're going to have legislators being cautious, which is a good thing." Morrell said.